1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of pay computer-controlled games and entertainment devices, including both games of skills and games of chance. More particularly, the present invention relates the field of methods, systems and devices for the automated monitoring and control of a large number of clusters of such pay gaming and entertainment devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional pay entertainment and gaming systems, either of the cash or the cashless type, are seriously limited due to the technical choices that are typically made to comply with regulatory requirements. Indeed, regulators are mainly concerned with fraud, cheating and stealing, as may occur when legitimate winners are deprived of their just winnings or when illegitimate users receive illegitimate winnings. Because of these security concerns, regulators are reluctant to approve licenses for state-of-the-art “open” multimedia and Internet technologies, opting instead for known but antiquated technology.
However, the security of such antiquated technology (i.e., technology developed prior to the present advanced multimedia and Internet age) is mostly illusory. Such conventional technologies are only perceived as being more stable and secure because their flaws are not widely publicized. Computer technology being extremely complex, there are always latent imperfections and flaws, which may be exploited by the ill intentioned. This is even truer with antiquated technology, as hacker-crackers have now access to considerable information on software weaknesses as well as sophisticated attack strategies and tools that they may apply to older software.
Legacy entertainment and gaming systems that are authorized for use in public places are usually aggregates of old technologies bundled together with some PC hardware featuring basic fault tolerance, basic data integrity and add-hoc security means, together with some LAN networking functionality to enable some primitive centralized auditing. Although some advanced security means have been proposed (such as disclosed in, for example WO 01/41892) that promote off-line gaming security using smart cards, this approach in fact exposes the system to latent unidentified security threats that hacker-crackers or employees will likely eventually exploit. Off-line or semi-on-line systems are totally in the hands of very few people. In short, these systems operate essentially with little means for detecting under-the-radar fraud (to push the analogy farther, finer-grained and smarter radar means would be uneconomical for casino and gaming operators to implement).
In contrast, lottery and pari-mutual wager systems have evolved to modem fully on-line very-high-capacity mission-critical systems funneling billions of dollars annually while offering significantly greater security means than the security afforded by banks. Since these organizations have come on-line, lawsuits resulting from complaints, flaws and fraud, including internal fraud by employees, have virtually disappeared. However, although pay entertainment and gaming machines based on secure Internet web browser and cash-less payment technology are ideal centralized candidate solutions to equip casinos and like sites, these may rapidly kill the traditional gaming support industry.
The entertainment and gaming systems lag behind state-of-the-art multimedia PC, gaming console, wireless and interactive TV technologies; consequently these systems are ill prepared to attract the younger player generation accustomed to flashy and networked games.